


In Her Hands

by SegaBarrett



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sex Work, creepy motels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25412056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Bianca has a client she can't quite get her mind around.
Relationships: Sex Worker/Client Who May Be the Devil
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	In Her Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Capitola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/gifts).



It wasn’t that she didn’t like her job. There were parts of it that she actually did find enjoyable from time to time, and that was what made the quitting voice – that thing inside that was always suggesting that not only she should quit the whole thing but drop out of her life entirely and, who knew, move to Malibu and bet on horses – so reluctant all the time.

After all, she had helped a guy last week. He had been depressed and had spent the whole time talking about it before walking out and changing his whole career, from accounting to banking or something, and it seemed to have helped him.

So she liked what she did, at least a little, and as she stood there waiting for the bus she told herself that it wasn’t really her fault that she couldn’t just announce what she did.

“Isn’t like anyone else could do what I do,” she muttered under her breath, and the man next to her looked over to see if she’d been speaking to him. 

Maybe she had just been speaking to anyone, but either way. 

Bianca Black was done with this already and it was only four o’clock.

***

As a matter of course, she didn’t like meeting anywhere out of the way. That was the kind of place where something could go wrong, and where there wouldn’t be anyone nearby to alert – bystanders weren’t always great at, well, not bystanding, but no one could be certain of that so people were less likely to do something wild if there was a crowd around.

And yet she was standing next to the creepiest, most rundown place she had ever seen in her life, wondering if this damn thing was even still in business or whether even that was a ruse. 

_The Liberty Street Motel_ , the chipped and peeling lettering on the front of the building read. That was where the text had told her to go. 

Hopefully, this was going to be worth every penny, and hopefully she didn’t end up in the obituaries. She had just begun to pace when a shadow appeared behind her, as if by magic, and she found herself taking in a woman with short red hair, dressed in a long black trenchcoat.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” the woman intoned. Her voice was rich and deep, and Bianca found herself looking up to follow the woman’s eyes. They seemed to leave her head and take a small trip around her.

She was a good foot taller than Bianca, which made her slightly uncomfortable, though she didn’t know why. In fact, a lot of things were making her suddenly uncomfortable about this woman.

And yet she shoved it all back into the box in her mind where she put feelings like that. If she paid attention to every weird tingle she got during the day, nothing would ever get done and she would have never replaced her hot water heater.

“Hello,” Bianca replied, extending her hand. When the woman reached in response, each finger touched her coldly, as if she’d just stuck her hand in a freezer. “What did you want me to, uh… call you? Or did you want us to talk about all of that upstairs?”

The woman seemed as if she hadn’t heard at first. She stared, as if she could look right through Bianca; but Bianca held the gaze. Something told her that she had to. The woman’s eyes seemed blood-shot, and at the same time not really there.

There was a kind of humming in her head, too… 

A song that she could recall the melody to, but not the words.

***

Every room was available at the Liberty Street Hotel, and Bianca wasn’t surprised by that so much as surprised that the place was even open at all. The hallways were lined with blue, peeling carpets and the room that they walked into was garnished with an end-table and a crooked bed, another tattered carpet (this one a sickly shade of green) and peeling paint that was crying down the walls.

Bianca took a seat on the bed and smiled at her client.

“What did you want me to call you?” she inquired again.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of her. This was something that had never happened before; a thought flittered up in her brain to say that it might be love, but Bianca needed to correct that: this felt more like some kind of instinct, like some sort of survival. And yet there she was, transfixed, lying back on the bed even as the woman’s tongue slid over her lips, as if she was considering a name rather than thinking of one she already owned.

Bianca had the oddest thought: that maybe the woman was wondering what kind of name she would like to own, instead.

“You can just call me Lucy, if you like,” the woman said. Her voice was like honey rolling into her ears, and Bianca wanted to shake it out. She wanted to get up as quickly as she could and just go… It wasn’t about the money anymore, but – 

She thought of the song, the one they had always sang when she had been a little girl. “He’s got the whole world in his hands…”

Bianca had sung it too and then her Aunt Mary hadn’t said anything to the school but she did tell Bianca and her sister that she thought it was inappropriate for them to sing that at a public school and after that they never sang it ever again.

Bianca suspected that the woman in front of her held the whole world in her hands, and it was terrifying.

“Lucy, then,” Bianca managed with a smile. She really should be looking away – that seemed the safer yet impossible thing to do. It was as if Lucy – that couldn’t really be her name, could it? But people probably didn’t believe her name was actually Bianca – could steal her soul out of her eyes like some sort of modified mummy.

Lucy leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips.

It felt like her lips were bruised, but she didn’t completely understand how. There was a scent of something – incense, baking soda.

She wondered if Aunt Mary would tell her head to stop singing the song now – _whole world in his hands..._

There was a smell of something that must have been something like gunpowder and then there was…

Then there was nothing but a blue haze and a feeling of floating.

***

The sound of knocking on the door, so loudly that Bianca was sure it was going to break. She burst out of bed and scampered over to the endtable, seeing a red envelope perilously close to the edge. She scooped it up and looked around.

“You’d better get out or I’m charging you for another night!” a voice on the other end of the door yelled.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out. Just grabbing my things,” Bianca said. The loneliness – the alone-ness – of the room seemed to fill it.  
She opened the envelope to find a few crisp hundreds and a card, overlaid in handwriting that looked perfect, too perfect, like someone who had studied calligraphy.

It read:  
_If you ever need a favor, call me.  
I always liked that song, too._


End file.
